MANSFIELD PARK. This quietly charming novel of manners, published in 1814, is perhaps less popular than some of the other works of Jane Austen, but it is regarded by more than one critic as even superior to them in richness and maturity. As the title implies, the story is built around English country house life. Fanny Price, an indigent niece, is taken into the family of Sir Thomas Bertram. Overlooked for the most part by Sir Thomas and his wife, subjected to the carping control of the odious Mrs. Norris, Lady Bertram's sister, and neglected or patronized by three of her cousins, Fanny finds her chief consolation in the casual kindness of her remaining cousin, Edmund, whom she grows to love. But Ed mund is attracted by the dashing and sophisti cated Mary Crawford, who with her brother, Henry, is visiting at the neighboring rectory. Henry, an turn, after various flirtations with the Bertram sisters, pays suit to Fanny. The unfolding of these several relationships by means of seemingly insignificant incidents— dances, excursions, amateur theatricals — consti tutes some of Miss Austen's most skilful work and affords her opportunity for those delicately humorous, mildly ironical accounts of the life she knew best, that have made her immortal.
Of course in the end Henry and Mary Craw ford are eliminated and Edmund loves and marries his Cinderella-like cousin. No single character in this novel is as well known as Mr. Collins of 'Pride and Prejudice' or Miss Bates of 'Emma'; yet the various personages are excellent examples of the author's nice dis crimination and marvelous insight. Each character is clearly portrayed though not un duly simplified; each exhibits in varying pro portions that mixture of good and evil common to all mankind. In a word, the characters are not types or Elizabethan but are richly human. 'Mansfield Park' appeals to many classes of readers. It is the best kind of historical novel, for it records vividly the man ners and customs of ordinary folk in the Napoleonic era. It •is a superb example of a serene, balanced realism, avoiding alike the rose-pink and the dirty drab that Meredith later reprehended. It is an almost flawless instance of pure comedy in fiction. Consult Howells, W. D., 'Heroines of Cornish, Francis Ware, 'Life of Jane Austen' ; Smith, Goldwin, 'Life of Jane Austen.'